I spent some time correcting the new dispatcher in her thinking without coming off as obnoxious or otherwise superior.  She was upset that other drivers had to wait over the weekend for empty trailers to show up.  She thought it "sucks for you guys".  My reply?  Uhh, if you ask everyone, 90% of drivers are going to say they absolutely adore and love waiting down here, getting paid to sit around doing nothing.  

I got here - Brownsville - last night and much to my delight there were no empties here or the other/new yard.  The driver ahead of me got the only empty and that was quite fine by me.  I haven't had a detention stay down here in months, ever since the got use of a second yard and however they worked it.  

But there is always one factor that will come into play, sooner or later: The receiving plant in Mexico.  When they start getting behind, they still order more product and don't care how long it takes for empties to get back up to the border. They are leasing our trailers - they have the sole use of probably 10 of our trailers and they are paying through the nose for it - plus they pay wait time for both the driver and to the company - they are the customer and one of our biggest ones - they are in the driver's seat here.  Which is totally fine by me, it wouldn't bother me if they never got caught up.  It wouldn't bother most other drivers, either.  I'm told there will be an empty here soon, it's almost 11:00 am, a nice chunk of pay for sitting around, it's an entire day's worth of driving. See how that works? I get a day's worth of work for doing nothing but waiting overnight and part of the day.  If it does get here soon, I will get back late tonight, have tomorrow off and be happy as a bug in a rug.  

This is where a lot of our "extra" pay comes from and jacks up our wages every year.  No one was particularly happy that they had arranged it to get rid of detention pay, but I knew and said so a while back, that the plant in Alta Mira will get behind or shut down, all the while ordering more product and we will eventually see at least some detention pay once again.

Moving on, I had a local website developer create a logo for my park.  It was very nice, I thought, until I posted it on facebook and one person pointed out that the door on the travel trailer is on the wrong side (correct) and another agreed that there should be a doggy somewhere on the logo to identify that pets are welcome.  Everyone instantly understood the gist of the logo tho, it informed you without actually saying it that trailers, tents and camp fires are welcome.  Hence the need for a dog and possibly a family with kids waving?  I dunno, he's going to fix the trailer, move the fire and add a doggy. If there appears to be room for a happy, elated, wonderful family (lol!) waving then I will ask him to do so. 

If not, it will just be mentioned in the description of the park, families welcome. That will turn off some of the older generation and so be it. I'm not going to discriminate against any particular grouping of people excepting obnoxious drunks and slobs.  Neither grouping of people is welcome and especially drunkards making life hell for everyone will be asked to leave immediately. I don't care if they drink, that's their choice, but not to the point of harassing other guests and making too much noise etc.  You know how drunks can get, especially the boisterous ones....

The fact of the matter is, a lot of the older generation drinks.  Beer, liquor and wine.  To exclude them would be negating a lot of income.  And again, I frankly don't care as long as a person doesn't go too far with it and is in control of themselves.  

I have to get the domain name and get a site reserved and I'm going to have to do that quickly.  I don't want anyone else getting that name, in fact if I have time I will do that after I get done with this entry.  Yes, I know,  no one has ever used it before why would they now? I don't know and I don't want to find out the hard way.  

I decided to contact one of these endless mulching companies to see what it would cost for them to take down the trees and underbrush.  His pricing was nothing short of outrageous, far beyond anything I've heard yet at $2,800 per day. Where does this guy even come off attempting to charge prices like that? He even admitted a trackhoe and dozer would cost less than that, but the advantage is that I won't have a huge burn pile to spend "months" burning.  

He does make a point I would have to tend to the fire, but months? Douse a pile with diesel fuel that has been nicely stacked and it will take days, maybe, not months.  Maybe months to finally get all of it down to nothing, but I can assure you that the lion's share of it will not take months to dispose of and I won't have all of that mulched material all over the ground.  An advantage of a trackhoe is the tree and it's roots are completely gone.  A dozer will be able to push dirt around and get it some semblance of level (doesn't have to be perfect, just want it close).  

This guy sold me on the trackhoe and dozer as soon as he made his case for his mulcher and saying the other say is cheaper.  The other way also gets the roots out of the ground.  The roots are of concern because these trees can possibly make a come back.  Even if they don't, the roots will be in the way of the dozer to flatter everything out.  I don't need to be a rocket scientist to figure out that the track hoe method will be the most advantageous, regardless of giant burn piles.  I like burning things lol.  And anyway, I'm not doing the whole park right off the bat.  The burn piles can go in areas where I will eventually put in sites, there is no immediate need for it all to be gone, poof, just like that.  

So, however long it takes, it will be fine.  

I'm still waiting on quotes, one from the water install dude - but he said a couple of weeks before he could come out and walk the woods and get me a quote. The other from the guy that already looked at everything.  His quote might take a while since he is coming up with all the utilities and the land clearing.  

I'm figuring around 11 grand worth of gravel not including spreading and compacting it.  So around 15k just for gravel alone.  12k for septic, at least 12k for electric, around 4k for water and 15k for gravel and that's the park without anything else.  That's $43,000.  

That doesn't include a small building, a couple of washers and dryers, installing a dog park fence, signs, some lighting, finishing the walking trails.  There is website design costs but I'm just figuring that out of my normal paychecks, not money out of 401k.  That will include the online payment and reservation option.  In fact, you won't be able to stay at my park without online reservation, most all of the parks do it that way and it's quite efficient. On top of that, if I can do it, is a pond.  A small lake/large pond will have to wait until later, but I really want to get something in there. Was already looking at costs for bass to stock it with.  Not bad pricing, but I'm going to want hundreds of them dumped in there at least. Some will die and they aren't big fish at all. 3 inches to start with, apparently that's what you can get around here. 

I haven't done a lot of searching on that tho, I would like to see if I can find some larger stock fish. 3 inch fish will take years to grow into nice sized bass worthy of any fisherman's time to try and catch - and release, thank you.  

What I can say is I'm working on everything at this point.  Everything that I can think of that I will need I'm getting done.  Or I should say, getting a start on and getting some pricing and picking the brains of those that know.  

I'm still qualifying for large personal loans.  Up to $100k. Some of them are ridiculous interest rates, the lower rates are much higher payments - but - they are on shorter terms and no longer than 6 years to pay off.  A last resort, yes, but it's an option at least.  If I find I must go that route, I will not do it until I have all the utilities done, sites set up and then be able to quickly get everything done and get the park up and open for business.  I don't want to be forking out that much money on just my paychecks alone.  And, if that kind of loan is needed, it's going to be the smallest loan necessary to finish everything off.  Keep the payments down as much as possible.  '

I could see getting a 2 room bath house done tho and get a broader appeal out there to a greater market. And nothing quite too fancy, just a shower with a toilet and a sink, heating and cooling unfortunately but I can't see people being happy in an ice cold room or a sweltering hot room and of course hot water.  Something small, simple and to the point.  Lumber costs are still through the roof, tho, that's the thing that would run the cost up of even a small structure. It's in my mind tho, I may see about getting some quotes on building one and see what I am facing to get it done. 

I'm slowly working my way through this menagerie of decisions and waiting for so and so to give quotes and come out and look, etc.  

As for now? Just gonna sit back and wait for trailer. Hoping to make it back to Longview today -but they're gonna have to get here soon with it to do that.

Walmart, at least, had several pair of my sized jeans!  So I bought 4 pair lol.  Just throwing that in there, I couldn't find any at the walmart in my town.

G'day